Sunday, August 18, 2013

Nixon Wasn't This Brazen

Lots and lots of discussion around the education blogs about this pile of crap whinefest by a former Department of Education official in anticipation of Diane Ravitch's new book on education reform. The book is due out next month, I believe, and it must be fairly explosive for anybody to make such a complete and total jackass of himself on behalf of his former boss's boss, meaning Obama.

People are finally waking up to this privatization scam and the bigger scammers in Washington who have RUINED the Democratic Party brand on behalf of the gangsters calling the shots (billionaires, hedge fund crooks, neoliberals). Public education is seen as a cash cow to loot and make these people even more rich. This has nothing to do with the kids, teachers, teaching, or learning. It certainly has nothing to do with the concept of the public good.

The privateers are really afraid their scam will be exposed to millions of people.

The Ravitch critic is probably upset she flunked his boss, also known as Obama's flunky, in this piece from last year:

Does Duncan respect the limited role of the federal government in education, which all previous secretaries have recognized?

No. Duncan has expanded the role of the federal government in unprecedented ways. He seems not to know that education is the responsibility of state and local governments, as defined by the Tenth amendment to our Constitution. States and local school districts now look to Washington to tell them how to reform their schools and must seek permission to deviate from the regulations written by the U.S. Department of Education. George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind (NCLB) created the template for this growing federal control of education, but Arne Duncan’s Race to the Top has made it possible for Washington to dictate education policy across the nation. Grade: F.

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Has Duncan followed the law in his education policies?

No. Duncan has issued waivers to states that want to be relieved from NCLB’s impossible mandate of reaching 100 percent proficiency by 2014, but replaced that law’s demands with those of his own devising. Duncan says his waivers allow “flexibility,” but they serve simply to impose his own ideas about evaluating teachers, “transforming” low-performing schools (by firing staff or closing the schools), and adopting national standards in reading and mathematics. While very few people defend NCLB, which will write off almost every public school in the United States as a failure by 2014, it is still the law. Duncan has no authority to replace it with his own rules; cabinet members are not allowed to change the laws. Under our Constitution, Congress writes the laws, and the executive branch must enforce them, even as it seeks to change those that are onerous and misguided. Grade: F.

That's just two of her grades of Duncan, who gets an impressive "F" overall.